Church of England: Imperial Rome
“It is not an act of aggression,” the Archbishop of Canterbury insisted as the Vatican’s metaphorical tanks drew up outside Lambeth Palace on Tuesday. Not even his admirers quite believed him, and few saw Pope Benedict’s back-channel deal with Anglo-Catholics opposed to women bishops as “not a vote of no confidence”. It looked much more as if the Pope had launched a small craft to ferry the disaffected back across the Tiber, a move to asset-strip the Anglican communion of those bits the Vatican might find useful. It was an uncompromising recognition of the fissiparous state of Anglicanism and the failure of Rowan Williams’ long, hard struggle to hold it together. (altro…)

Rowan Williams says God will not save us from catastrophe: he wants us to save ourselves. But we won’t be able to do it without religion.
If God won’t rescue us from impending doom, as the Archbishop of Canterbury claims, what possible use is it to believe in him? This looks like a knock-down argument, but it turns out to be a swing at empty air. Whatever evidence has led believers to their trust in God, it surely isn’t that he can rescue them from death or disaster. (altro…)

He admitted that conflict is inevitable between traditional religions and new human rights laws. He said: “The real test of a religion is whether in an age of aggressive secularism it has the confidence to go out and make its case by persuasion.”

From Times Online
March 5, 2009Blair defends faith
The former PM has defended those who express their religion in public, saying faiths need to show their beliefs ‘in action’
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

Tony Blair has defended the place of Christianity in the public sphere.

He said that people should not be sacked or disciplined for expressing their faith in public.

“My view is that people should be proud of their Christianity and able to express it as they wish,” he said in an interview with The Church of England Newspaper, to be published tomorrow. (altro…)

A society that does not allow crosses or veils in public is a dangerous one

Coming back from a fortnight in China at the beginning of this week, into the middle of what felt like a general panic about the role of religion in society, had a slightly surreal feel to it. The proverbial visitor from Mars might have imagined that the greatest immediate threat to British society was religious war, fomented by “faith schools”, cheered on by thousands of veiled women and the Bishops’ Benches in the House of Lords. Commentators were solemnly asking if it were not time for Britain to become a properly secular society. (altro…)